


Desperation

by CaptainL95



Category: Accel World
Genre: Gen, Omorashi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-11-24 14:24:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20909132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainL95/pseuds/CaptainL95
Summary: Thanks to arguing like cats and dogs, Haru has taken it into his own hands to punish Kuroyukihime and Niko, by secretly removing their access to his bathroom. Either they make up their differences, or losing control, it's not going to be quick.





	Desperation

"How did I get into this situation," Haruyuki Arita lamented aloud. He was alone in his apartment's living room, his mom was out on business. Normally, he didn't mind that, he lived most of his life in isolation, at least emotionally, except this time was much worse. His mom was not very wary, so when she got a message that a family member needed a place to stay for the weekend, she had no reservations about giving out an instance key to their apartment and grant them full access.

That "family member", it turns out, was actually fifth-grader Yuniko Kozuki looking to find Haru's real identity. Because Niko was also the Red King, Scarlet Rain, and she wanted Silver Crow's assistance in a legion matter even if it meant blackmailing him. The Brain Burst game was very serious business, driving elementary schoolers to lie their way into someone's home. Haru figured her out quickly, but was willing to listen to her request in a meeting with his legion's other members the next day, his best friend Takumu Mayuzumi and Brain Burst guardian Kuroyukihime.

That's when things turned from bad to worse. Upon learning that Niko would be there throughout the night, Kuroyukihime suddenly declared she wouldn't be leaving either, of course without consulting Haru or asking his permission. And the girls did not get along, constantly bickering like schoolgirls...which they were, but it didn't excuse their behavior. Right now, the two were bathing, and their arguing hadn't stopped. Except this squabbling, about rinsing and rubbing each other...this one was strangely okay for Haru to listen to.

Just as he was considering entering for the chance to get some sort of a peek, the girls exited, sending Haru hiding behind a cabinet to not look suspicious. Once he was sure it was safe to emerge, he poked his head from behind the furniture. Niko had a set of red pajamas on because everything had to be color-coordinated with her. Was her red hair even the natural color? It'd be an unusual one if that was the case. Well, that hair was down completely in a more casual style compared to the twintails she possessed during the day.

It was Haru's senpai that got his attention. While Kuroyukihime usually wore dark shaded outfits that accentuated her pure black hair (were hair colors and duel avatar colors a coincidence?) and gave her an air of mystery, her pajamas were a light pink. Her shorts were a purple more average for her, but Haru didn't quite believe it despite seeing it, and he found himself inspecting further to make sure it was real. Evidently, she noticed, as she blushed and started stroking the ends of her long hair with both hands. "Please don't stare. It was the only color they had in my size."

Without hesitating even a second, Haru grinned and waved his hands in a nervous and hasty reassurance. "Don't say that, it looks really good on you, Senpai!"

Hime, as one of her friends nicknamed her, blushed at the compliment. She played off a disconnected, above most things attitude, but Haru's opinion mattered to her. It was a cute moment, promptly ruined by Niko (who had already obtained a popsicle) leaning into the conversation. "Incredible, Black Lotus." The two girls were long-time Burst Linkers, it was only expected they'd refer to each other by their online names. "Your intents are just as flat as your..." Whatever she was insinuating, it was interrupted by the Black King promptly punching her in the stomach. Haru dropped his hands into both of his palms. A few hours with this pair was already on the verge of driving him insane, how could he put up with an entire night?

Dinner ended up being no better. Not in terms of the meal, Niko was a good cook, as she proved the day before with some delicious cookies while pretending to be cute, but the tension at the table was thick. While Haru was happily eating, Hime was only picking at her plate, and Niko was absolutely loving that. "What's wrong, Black Lotus? Does it bother you that big brother is enjoying my meals?" She used that familial term for Haru when she was pretending to be an innocent little cousin and dropped it when he discovered her true identity, but if it would get under Kuroyukihime's skin, she'd flaunt it as much as possible.

And it worked. That had to be embarrassing, one of the most popular students at the high school was being riled up by a fifth-grader. She tried her best, as the older role model, to not let it get to her. "Why should it bother me? I don't do much cooking anyway."

Little did she know or suspect, she was playing straight into Niko's hands. "You should really learn to, then. After all, you'll have to provide for Haru..." She leaned over the table to place herself closer to Hime. "...when you're his wife."

In nearly perfect unison, both Haru and Kuroyukihime choked on what was in their mouth at the time, recovered, and almost fell backwards out of their chairs with faces as red as Scarlet Rain. Even with Hime's attraction to Haru well known to both of them by now, it was still a shock to hear it put so bluntly. "What are you trying to insinuate, Scarlet Rain," Black Lotus demanded, very close to shouting.

"Come on, you really need me to spell it out?" Niko leaned back like this was the most relaxing situation, sipping her juice in a condescending way. "It's ridiculously easy to see how badly you want to bring this kid into your bed! Hey, your fantasies are none of my business, but I wouldn't go for it. But maybe you know something I don't, maybe he's got one hell of a..."

Hime was furious and shaking the whole diatribe, but by the end, she was almost jumping over the table to choke this kid. "Where do you get off spouting this crap, you bratty little half-pint?!"

Under actual threat, Niko was ready to fight back. "You wanna go, you high school failure of a king?! Fine then, let big brother decide! Which one of us do you prefer?"

Haru was not expecting to be pulled into this. Despite being one of the most famous duelists in the Accelerated World, he'd much rather stay a pacifist in the real one. "W-well, Senpai's done so much for me, I can never repay her for that."

Hime gave a smirk smile and crossed her arms in victory, but Niko hadn't surrendered yet. "Are you sure about that, big brother? Have you touched her breasts yet?"

"You got angry at me when I touched yours," Haru defended.

Hime wasn't taking Niko's questioning at face value until Haru defended himself. "Haruyuki...what did you do?" Each syllable was stretched out and emphasized, it actually sounded like she might kill him.

"N-nothing happened! She was pretending to be my cousin, I was in the bath, and she came in to join me, but I still don't get what she would have accomplished with that! I told her she wasn't fooling me, she stopped being cute and stormed out, she slipped towards the bathtub, and I caught her! I didn't control where my hands ended up!" Even telling the complete truth and providing a logical explanation, he was still scared he'd become a murder victim by the end of the night.

Somehow, by the greatest miracle, that got Hime off his case, but back to a shouting match with Niko. "Why did the Red King have to come find me," Haru lamented as he slunk down in his seat. She just had to appear in his home and his life, like a pick cracking a sheet of ice. And because of that instance key, she could infiltrate every room in the apartment, even his own bedroom was no longer a safe haven. She had complete control.

"Wait a minute...that's not how instance keys work." The key was more of a crude password substitute rather than a master key, it took a snapshot of all the passwords to the area it's granting access to when it was given, instead of bypassing the security to begin with. That way, if it was given erroneously, the passwords leading to sensitive subjects could be changed before whoever received the key could reach them. It was a safeguard put in place to cover guests in a corporation building, but it had personal uses as well.

Too occupied with getting the better of each other, the girls didn't notice Haru swiping his hands around and flicking his fingers, opening the privacy settings for the apartment. "Let's just add a password to the restroom," he whispered, setting the key and confirming the change. It didn't have a password before now, so Niko's instance key wouldn't open it, and it didn't grant her admin privileges to unlock it. Now, unless he gave the password or removed it, neither of the girls would be able to use the toilet. "Maybe you'll be more willing to cooperate with that on the line."

\---------------

Burst Linkers were used to having strange dreams. They relived traumatic scars to create their duel avatar, and embodying those wounds in battle produced plenty of mental stress to create more nightmares. But Niko had no emotional attachment to her current dream. Water. She was standing knee deep in an high tide ocean, waves pulling her body deeper and rising to her chest, rain starting to fall on her face. She had no reason to be thinking of water, but sometimes dreams couldn't be explained.

Slowly, she started to fade out of the dreamscape, her eyes opening to the ceiling of Haru's dark living room. Feeling too warm, she slid her arms up to throw her blanket off, but as her hands crossed her stomach, the touch brought a feeling to her thoughts. Now the subject of her dream suddenly made sense. Rolling onto her side, she almost got a mouthful of Kuroyukihime's hair blending too well with the night. This was an unusual sleeping arrangement, after their heated argument about attraction to Haru, neither of them wanted to share one of the two couches with him, so they doubled up on the other. Why he took a couch instead of using his bed, neither knew.

Niko started shoving Hime, with almost enough force to push her off the couch. "Lotus, wake up. Get up."

It took almost a dozen pushes before Hime tossed over to face Niko. "What," she slurred out, groggy from exhaustion. Clearly, she wasn't a morning person. At least, the 3 in the morning kind.

"I gotta piss. Come with me to the bathroom." Niko wasn't scared of the dark, and she knew where it was better than Hime, but there's truth to the observation that women always go to the bathroom in pairs. Also, she'd wake the high schooler anyway climbing over her.

"...fine." With all the energy of someone woken up far earlier than God intended, she crawled onto the floor, very nearly on all fours, but she did get on her feet, a more alert Niko standing up after while Hime rubbed her eyes to clear her vision. "Do you need me to hold your hand too?"

"Don't be an ass," Niko replied very bluntly. Feeling the walls while their eyes still adjusted to the darkness, the two slowly made it to the bathroom door. The younger reached for the knob, pulling it downwards to undo the latch, only to find it not budging. As she realized the non-progress, her neurolinker popped an error message up. "Password required, please enter password? There's no password on the bathroom," Niko complained.

"A glitch, maybe," Hime offered. Whatever the easiest answer was, she'd say that was it until she'd had the proper amount of sleep.

"No, I think Crow did something! I'm gonna wake him up and give him what he deserves!" Even in the middle of the night when the majority of the country was sleeping, Niko was ready to fight, stomping off to find Haru.

Hime grabbed her shoulder. "Please don't. Can we please just go back to sleep? Hold it in for another 5 hours or something."

Niko struggled for a while, but when it was clear the Red King had nothing on Black Lotus in real strength, she gave up. "Fine, I can wait." Ordinarily, a request for "hold it for 5 more hours" would be akin to ordering torture, but if she was going to be asleep the whole time, that seemed easy enough to manage.

\---------------

Well, Niko was wrong. She woke up in a cold sweat at around 7 AM, while her roommates for the night were still sleeping, legs unintentionally crossed hard. "Shit! I'm gonna piss myself!" Without feeling the gradual climb up desperation, it was a miracle she didn't wet the couch already.

She wasn't waiting a second longer, leaping over her couchmate and knocking her to the hard floor with a crash of a yelping girl's body, and yanking Haru up. "What the hell did you do to the bathroom, you fucking dick?!"

Immediately awake like an animal on the watch for predators, Haru screamed as Niko grabbed his collar and shook him violently. "Unlock the door, now," she loudly demanded.

"Senpai, help me!" He pleaded to his senior, recovering from her fall behind Niko's shoulder.

"...just tell her, Haruyuki." He couldn't confirm anything while being thrown about, but he thought he saw Hime rub her thighs together slightly.

Now that it was clear he wasn't going to get any help, Haru took a deep breath and puffed his chest out. "Not until I hear some apologies."

"Apologies?! For what?!"

"For sneaking into my apartment, going into my room, all the ways you were a jerk to Senpai yesterday. For starters."

Surprised, Niko let go of Haru and backed off. "What are you talking about?! I shared a couch with that stuck-up bitch for a whole night, you don't think I've suffered enough?!"

"Isn't that a nice way to thank me for putting up with your constant tossing around and hogging the blanket," Hime shouted back. "Fine then, just give me the password, Haruyuki. I can promise I won't give it to this ungrateful whiner." The stare she gave Niko was as deadly as Black Lotus' lances.

Haru shook his head. "I'm sorry, Senpai, but you haven't been acting any more mature. I'll unlock the bathroom when I get an apology from both of you."

"Fine then," Niko grumbled. She stood straight with her legs pressed together, but shaking, and faced Hime. "I'm sorry, Lotus. I won't do it again." The hostility was seething, an aura thick enough to choke on.

"That wouldn't fool a kindergartner," Haru and Hime complained at the same time.

"What do you expect?! I'm on the verge of pissing myself!" She grabbed the crotch of her pajama pants and bounced on her heels.

"Fine then," Haru sighed, resigning himself to the failure. "I'm going to put on some clothes, and then I'm going out to buy some things for breakfast. If you think you can muster a sincere sorry, send me a video message." He exited the living room for his bedroom, closing the door with a new password now that he knew it wasn't private.

As soon as he was out of sight, Niko started bending down further and bouncing more frequently. Before, it looked like her dancing was feigning pain, but she had clearly been holding back. "When the hell did that runt grow a spine?"

"Of all the times for him to take my lessons and stand up for himself, why did it have to be now?" Hime flopped back into sitting on the couch.

Niko dropped next to her, her right thigh pressed over her left. "Don't be a whiner, what's it matter to you if you can't get into the bathroom?"

"Because it isn't all about you. You're not the only one who has to pee, I'm just better at hiding it. I do have a certain image to keep at the school."

That statement seemed to genuinely shock Niko, with the way she reeled away from Hime. "...you have realized who you hang out with, right?"

Honestly, she couldn't deny that making herself visibly friendly with Haru had a negative impact on her reputation, but she wouldn't dare insult him now. "It doesn't matter what effect Haruyuki has on my status, I'm not leaving him behind."

Niko rolled her eyes at the statement of affection. "Yeah, and look where your lovey-dovey protectiveness got us. Two Kings of Pure Color, reduced to needing to pee because we got punished."

"By my student, no less. Guess he's teaching us the lesson this time." She laughed a little bit, but stopped awkwardly to gingerly rub the front of her shorts.

It was inevitable the two would find some common ground. Spending enough of your life to become a level 9 Burst Linker did tend to produce similar personality traits. Hime had a bias against Niko for inserting herself into Haru's life, while the Red King resented Black Lotus for previous cowardice. Now, the two were thinking the same thing: "I guess I can see why Haru is okay with her."

"Hey, I think I'd be a good enough actor now to fake regret," Niko claimed, looking a little bit more comfortable but still struggling. "Give Crow a call."

Hime, guessing the young girl may have been lying, smirked and flipped through the menus of her neurolinker to find the phone icon. She tapped the icon, and a message appeared in her vision. "You must be connected to the Global Net to make a call." The smile remained on her face as she read the words over and over. She knew the individual meanings, but there was a block on her understanding the whole.

It did break through, though. The grin bent into a grimace of horror, eyes staring in the distance like you'd see on someone with their mind lost to trauma. Of course, she couldn't place a call over the internet without being connected to it, if Haru wasn't in range of the home network any more. But she remained disconnected from the Global Net to avoid constantly being interrupted by Accelerated World duels.

Time spent in the Accelerated World didn't translate to real world time, it was a thousand times faster, but her mental processes perceived time passing at a constant speed. Needing to pee was mostly about thought, if it felt like minutes were passing, her desire for relief would increase accordingly. The nerves of her duel avatar and real body were also connected, if her bladder was uncomfortable, it would affect her fighting skills as well. She couldn't risk being pulled into a battle. "Rain...please tell me you connect to the Global Net."

"No. I don't want to have to fight my way through every day," she plainly stated like it should have been obvious. She didn't even realize she rhymed. "And I'm begging you, don't remind me of rain or anything water. I don't know how long I've got." She stared blankly at Hime, copying her earlier emptiness, until it occurred why she would have been questioned on that. "We can't call Crow, can we?"

"Nope. So we should...wait for him to get back."

"Fuck!" Niko bit her bottom lip, rubbing her legs together violently with her hands pressing hard on her pajamas.

"He probably won't be long, just do your best to hold it. You're the Red King, you're strong enough," Hime encouraged.

"That's not what I swore about." She looked down, bright red blush breaking out on her cheeks. She was going to say something embarrassing, that was easy to guess, but her rapid lower body movements distracted from the confiding. "I...just leaked a little."

"Oh no..." It was different for everyone, but if she lost a little urine already, the rest wouldn't wait for long. "How long do you think you have?"

"There's piss in my panties, I think the answer is clearly 'not long enough'." No one who had seen her the night before would have guessed, but now her patience was running out. Loud and obnoxious was more her default, it was the tranquil annoyance that marked her final hold.

Hime whimpered at the thought of Niko on the verge on an accident. She had to pee, too, closing in on being as bad of a need. The thought of the elementary schooler losing some control in her underwear was pushing her high school senior to follow similarly, a couple spurts dribbling into her black panties. Her breathing picked up pace in response and she jumped off the couch in a wild panic. "I think I'm out of time too, actually," she strained. "What do we do?!"

"You're supposed to be the one who's got everything together," Niko retorted. "Popular in school, making fighters out of losers, Black Lotus is a legendary name in the Accelerated World! But fill up your bladder and you act like a helpless kid!"

Hime thought she may have heard some jealousy in there, but instead of provoking by bringing it up, she angrily demanded a different answer. "And what do you think we're supposed to do?! The bathroom's locked and we can't contact Haruyuki!"

"You prude," Niko criticized, leaping up to match level with Kuroyukihime, though not really because she was much shorter. "It's an emergency now, we have the right to use whatever we can!"

"Use what, exactly?"

"Anything that can hold water! Cups, bowls, the sink, all that stuff. We still have access to the kitchen, after all."

Hime stepped back in shock. "T-that's disgusting!" But her body was trembling under its own pressure, Niko had a point about making do with what was around.

"Listen, you take what you can get, alright? Sometimes you're out walking to get a new game, there isn't a toilet and you have to improvise in an alley!"

That was a very specific scenario, and that made Hime wary. "You've done this before?"

"Yes, and that's not the point! I promise, it's not that hard!" Her yelling was getting more frantic, along with her shuffling. At best, they probably had a few minutes left.

"...fine, but I really don't want to, and you have to follow my rules. We never speak of this again, and you give me privacy!"

"You think I want to piss in front of you?! Those go without saying! Now hurry the fuck up and pick something you can work with, before I completely wet myself! My panties are soaked already!"

Pressure was not helping Hime make a decision, from Niko or herself. This wasn't an easy compromise to make, there were so few objects close enough to be visible that she could realistically use in place of a toilet. And the kitchen wasn't a separate room from them, privacy not guaranteed was a concern. So she'd need to use another room, again one very close by. "I-I guess I can take a glass into that...room..." She couldn't point, but she poked her head in the direction she was referring to, and she realized what she was saying by the end of the sentence. The bathroom was locked, but right next to them was the room containing the bath.

The two looked at each other once the epiphany happened. They stared into each other's eyes, processing the information they had been given. Silence followed, until the gravity of what that room being available meant. A bath was just too perfect a toilet substitute, both of them would kill for it. Without much speed, given their present statuses, they bolted for the door simultaneously, racing as quickly as their pained bodies would take them.

So close, Hime made the final leap to get in, about to cross the doorframe...before stopping just barely short as the door swung shut into her path. Somehow, given her more obvious stiffness and shorter stature, Niko made it first. And while she realized that, the click of the door locking emanated from the knob.

This was close to the final straw for Hime. The thought of being so close to release but still inaccessible was torturous, as she grabbed and clawed at her shorts, feeling them grow damper in her palms, jogging in place as a last resort. With an elbow she could spare, she banged on the door. "Rain! Let me in!"

"Not a chance, Lotus! I needed to go worse than you!"

"Please, I'm not far behind now! I don't care if you see me, I just need it!"

"And you think I don't care either?! You wait until I'm done!" Inside, Niko was dancing with just as much ferocity, holding it long enough for the conversation to end. But she was simultaneously in the process of undressing, pulling her hands off her pajama shorts and gripping their hem. A small spot on the crotch had been dyed a deeper shade of red by urine, also providing a shine. But it had nothing on her underwear, as she soon saw when she yanked the shorts down; everything below the waistband was soaked a dark shade of yellow. She was thankful they were a more absorbent material like wool, or she'd be drenched by now before actually releasing hold.

Hurriedly, she pushed her underwear down as well, gravity dropping them to her ankles with her shorts. That motion sent the signal to her bladder that she was ready to empty, as a few spurts forced their way out, streaming down her legs in tiny rivulets. She started sweating, she couldn't lose it this close to her goal. She had already placed herself on the wall of the bath, miraculously right next to the door, all she needed now was to sit. She landed with the tub's barrier right below her knees to ensure everything vital was hanging over the tile canyon, and leaned forward for balance. With a sigh, she let loose, as the sound of pee crashing against solid matter echoed through the room.

"Oh, thank you," Niko moaned out, her head hanging back, eyes half-lidded and mouth agape. "I cut that one way too close..." The ringing of a waterfall was so relaxing now, so long as it wasn't in a puddle beneath her feet, it was fine by her. There wasn't a slope to the tub's floor, so her leak was just forming a little pond, she'd need to run the water to drain it out, but she didn't care. She didn't wet herself, she'd take whatever catch came with this location. A near-bursting hold ended with only a minor soaking, it would have been hard for it to have ended better for the Red King.

Right outside, Hime was not experiencing the same. The sounds of Scarlet Rain's torrential downpour was not limited to the room she was in, it echoed past the walls, and Black Lotus was facing the brunt of the assault. And it wasn't just the liquid noises, it was Niko moaning constantly getting on Hime's nerves. "Will you shut up?! Get out of there!"

"Not happening. There's no way I can stop now. Sorry," she giggled with a sense of superiority. She made it, and Hime wouldn't.

Niko's sounds were too much. "I...I have to do something..." She couldn't take it anymore, unless she made a move, there'd be a giant mess to clean. But even the idea of moving was like waging a war. "If I can just...get to the kitchen, I can use a cup or...anything at all!" That's all she had to do, walk a few meters and she'd have some kind of container. It wouldn't be glamorous, but it had the chance of working, and that's all it took to convince her.

Easier said than done, however. At the moment, Hime was constantly leaking a new batch of drops into her underwear, and hers were a material that soaked through easily, down her legs. She was on a harsh timer, but she couldn't just give in. She took one awkward and trembling step, without realizing it didn't matter. No matter which road she followed, it would end in failure. Not for lack of trying, but she had reached her absolute limit. She just couldn't hold it anymore.

It started as a light pattering, raindrops on a rooftop. That serenity didn't last long before it evolved into tinkling as the streams ran down her legs and between her fingers into a growing pool on the floor. It felt...relaxing and warm, which loosened her muscles enough to empty everything she could hold as fast as possible. That's when the sound became a hiss, a deafening, roaring cascade of urine forcing downward. Kuroyukihime let go, there was no point to the grabbing anymore. She wet herself.

It was a horrifying sensation, to be sure. She was a high schooler, a Burst Linker, a fallen king, and drinking a little too much water made her lose. Her body went limp, just enough tension to keep her standing, as tears ran from her eyes and stuck to her cheeks. She was sniffling and swallowing hard, she couldn't cry. She had already degraded herself, below a point that anyone would look down on her, she couldn't fall further.

But, and she didn't want to believe it herself, it felt a little good. Her bladder, it felt, almost exploded, that was causing immense pain and suffering. And everything that caused it, every milliliter of torment, was flooding out of her and leaving in its place a void of emptiness. Marvelous, incredible, sweet emptiness. It wasn't enough to shake her out of depression, it would have felt actually relieving if her clothes didn't have to become a victim, but it made the shame easier to bear.

When Hime was only about half empty, the front door clicked, and she froze in her tracks. She was paralyzed, her pee the only part of her not frozen, in utter fear. Whatever came through that door, it would be hell. The entrance pushed open, a centimeter a second to her terrified eyes, and in walked...Haruyuki. Worst case scenario. And he was followed by Takumu, which somehow made it worse. They didn't miss their Senpai, their master, standing outside the bath door with a gallon of pee drenching her shorts, legs, and the floor. They couldn't miss that.

Every conceivable excuse, apology, outburst of anger, sadness, all of it ran through Hime's mind. Crashing together, she couldn't pick anything to say, her mouth trembling as she stared at them and they stared back. It was a silence that could only be replicated by witnessing a death. But she had to choke out something. "I-I-I...I'm sorry, Haruyuki."

A door opened behind her, that accursed sound again. "Phew! Sorry about the wait, Lotus, it's all yours now. But don't take too long, I need a bath. Didn't make it out of that completely unscathed, you...know?" At the same time, Niko noticed both Hime's accident, and the company they had received while she was unavailable. "...shit."

Taku grabbed Haru's shoulder and began pushing him out the apartment. "Sorry for the intrusion, Haru invited me over to be a mediator. We'll just...wait outside for a few minutes until you're presentable. Right, Haru?"

"Yeah," he responded, but a little more hesitating. Whether he didn't believe the sight or didn't want to leave it, would be taken to the grave. The front door almost slammed behind them, leaving the girls alone again.

"We're...both going to need that bath," Niko "helpfully" observed.

"Yes...but can I go first? We need to go to school. Speaking of, could you please get my uniform? I don't want to track anything around."

Niko dismissed her with a vertical flop of the wrist. "Yeah, sure. But I don't mind sharing the bath with you again." She realized what she sounded like she was implying as soon as the word left her mouth. "Not like that! I...respect you. As a Burst Linker." She looked away, crossed her arms, and puffed up her cheeks in pouting. "And as a person, I guess." She looked at Hime's "handiwork", sympathizing with the failure but a little impressed with how much a high schooler could manage. "That'll need to be cleaned up."

"Oh! Right, I'll do that if you can get the water running! It's my fault, after all."

Niko sighed. "Why am I getting punished for being the big girl?" She jabbed Hime's side with her elbow, in jest. "Fine, I guess I can handle the bath. I'll get the mop and bucket for you too, so you don't get the whole place wet. You're going to hate it, but stay there." Niko walked off, and Hime continued standing in her liquid humiliation, though not as melancholy as a minute ago.

Unbeknownst to them, in the hallway outside, Haru had his ear on the door to hear whatever was going on beyond. Taku was a little uncomfortable with the way his friend was acting. "Do you really have to do that, Haru? You look like a creep."

Suddenly realizing he was indeed acting like a pervert, Haru jumped back like the door was electrified. "Nonono, it's nothing like that! I was just...checking if the two of them learned their lesson. Adversity is the best way to improve, that's what Senpai taught me."

Taku sighed in disdain. "And was it really necessary to make her have an accident to teach it back to her?"


End file.
